Mayor Renner asks city council for a Mayor's aide

Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner wants the city council to approve 7$2,000 to hire an aide to help run city government.

Renner says his role as mayor extends way beyond city hall, but pays only 12-thousand a year and is part time .He says he works full time as mayor and an aide could help him with everything from scheduling to economic development, policy decisions and constituent concerns.

He said, "If you're trying to juggle two full time gigs it's going to be very very difficult to effectively do your job. I'm a type a so i can rise to the occasion and go to work fine, but that's not sustainable."

The aide in Renner's proposal will have an annual salary of $53,000 with benefits that would amount to a total compensation of $72,000

Diana Hauman is Bloomington's Alderwoman. She said, "I've had about a dozen emails and phone calls from constitutes saying they're not in favor of this. So I'm rethinking a little bit about what the roll would actually be and what it would look like."

Renner also wants the city to take over the Downtown Bloomington Association, which hosts events like the farmers market.The city budgets $90,000 annually for the association.

Renner says the city can afford to pay for these changes.City council as a whole gets to weigh in Monday.